CPI-M to launch movement against corruption, black money
Hyderabad, June 12 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Sunday said it would consult the other Left parties to launch a movement to demand measures to curb corruption in high places, to unearth black money and to bring back illegal money stashed abroad.
The central committee of the party demanded a comprehensive set of anti-corruption measures including an effective Lokpal legislation bringing the prime minister under its purview, setting up of a National Judicial Commission to oversee the judiciary, electoral reforms to curb the use of money power and firm measures to break the nexus of big business-ruling politicians and the bureaucracy.
CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting of the central committee that the Left parties will mobilise people to struggle to bring in measures to curb corruption.
The party noted that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is "displaying a tendency to assault democratic rights as seen in the manner in which it is trying to suppress protests against corruption and black money".
Warning the UPA government against another hike in the prices of petroleum products, the CPI-M said it would intensify its campaign against price rise and for a universal public distribution system.
The central committee decided to conduct "a vigorous political campaign against all the measures which are being proposed by the UPA government which are inimical to the interests of the people and the country."
They include bringing multinational companies into retail trade; continuance of targeted public distribution system as against the universal PDS; policies which squeeze the peasantry in agriculture and the fight against the land grab by corporates and the real estate speculators depriving the farmers from their lands.